Sick of Singleness and Satisfied in Christ

David writes in to asks: “Dear Pastor John, I am a 22-year-old single Christian in Singapore. How does a Christian single see and savor Christ as his all and ultimate satisfaction, yet have desires to be married? How do I reconcile my desires for marriage with my satisfaction in Christ?”

Right. The first thing I want to say to David is that the desire to be married, a good desire, is one of hundreds of desires that might compete with satisfaction in Christ. Desire to have a job if you don’t have one, desire to be free from cancer when you are sick, desire to no longer be blind or disabled if you are disabled, desire to have enough money to go to college when you don’t, a desire to be tall instead of short. In other words, the desire for marriage is not unique. It is not a unique challenge. I just don’t want David to feel isolated like he has got a battle to fight that I don’t have. We all have desires that put us in the same battle for how does contentment or satisfaction in Christ relate to the intensity of those desires from time to time.

And the second thing I would say is that we should probably remind ourselves that there are good de-sires and bad desires. The desire to be married is a good desire. The desire for adultery is a bad desire. The desire for food is a good desire. Gluttony is a bad desire. So David is not dealing with the conflict between evil desire and good contentment in Jesus. He knows that, but I am just making it clear for all the rest of us. The question is: How does contentment, satisfaction in Jesus relate to good desires that tug at us and make us feel some measure of discontent. Are we contradicting our desire for and our de-light in Jesus?

It might be good to put a text on this issue of contentment or satisfaction, because he is just kind of assuming it and maybe not everybody even knows, thinks in those categories. So here is Philippians 3:8. I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. So Paul seems to have such a sweet experience of knowing Jesus everything else pales by comparison. He is just lost. He is so happy in his fellowship with Jesus. Or another one would be at the end of Philippians in chapter four he says: I have learned in whatever situation I am in to be content or satisfied. I know how to be brought low. I know how to abound. In every, in any circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things, I can be satisfied in all circumstances through him who strengthens me.

So clearly Jesus gave Paul an amazing contentment. Those are amazing verses. We all just long to be like that. I do. But here is something crucial. Paul’s contentment in Jesus in every circumstance did not make him passive as though there was nothing in the world to change or nothing to pursue. Remember his incredible passion to preach the gospel to every place and person that didn’t have Christ named. I make it my ambition to preach the gospel, not where Christ has already been named. He said: I no longer have any room for work in these regions. I hope to see you in passing as I go to Spain and get helped on my journey.

So here is a man that seems driven. I mean he wants to go to Spain. So why wouldn’t we say: Paul, you don’t sound very, you know, content in Jesus. Why wouldn’t we say that? Jesus doesn’t make him passive in his satisfaction in Jesus. He doesn’t say: I have Jesus, I don’t need to go to Spain. I don’t need to risk my life to get the gospel to other people because I have Jesus. I have sweet fellowship. I will sit under a tree, cross my legs like a Buddha and let the world go to hell in a hand basket and I will be satisfied in Jesus. It simply doesn’t. Satisfaction in Jesus doesn’t work that way. Contentment in Jesus is not paralyzing. It is energizing. A person who is so content in Jesus they have no desires to change anything in the world or to extend that contentment to others, they are not content in Jesus, not the Jesus of the Bible. The contentment Jesus gives is meant in this fallen world and probably for eternity to grow and grow and grow, to increase by expressing it in risk taking acts of love and by drawing others into it. It is the sort of contentment that gets bigger when it expands to include other people.

So now back to marriage. What about marriage? That is all kind of foundation. Here is my question here. Do you want this for the sake of savoring and showing more of Christ? Will your enjoyment of a wife be an enlargement of your enjoyment of Christ? Will your enjoyment of Christ be enlarged by drawing a wife into it? Will her enjoyment of Christ be enlarged by drawing you into hers? Those are some of the ways that I would try to relate our contentment in Christ to—as a single person—to marriage.

In reality—and this is where the rubber meets the road, I suppose for him. In reality the day to day experience will be a battle to rest in Christ and act for joy. Rest in Christ and act for joy. They feel intention often. There is no quantification for this. I don’t know how to give a quantity. Like how much do you rest and how much to you quest? You know? You discover it in actual walking with Christ and telling him all you feel, asking him for all his help, all his wisdom and about when to rest and when to act and how to be restful in him even while acting. And so I think the last thing I could say is: God is going to show you. If you embrace that kind of understanding of contentment in Jesus, he will show you how to weigh out the longings you have for marriage and how appropriate they are in expressing your loneliness for Christ.

Thank you Pastor John. If you are not-yet-married, we have a couple of other episodes in the Ask Pastor John archive for you, including episode #170, “How Singleness Is Good,” and episode #262, “If My Church Lacks Available Singles, Should I Leave?” Also, check out the very popular blog posts written by our own Marshall Segal at our website, desiringGod.org. Tomorrow we will look at a very frequent question we get in the Ask Pastor John email inbox: Do our loved ones in heaven looking down on us? We’ll hear Pastor John’s thoughts on that tomorrow. I’m your host Tony Reinke, thank you for listening to the Ask Pastor John podcast.

John Piper (@JohnPiper) is founder and teacher of desiringGod.org and chancellor of Bethlehem College & Seminary. For 33 years, he served as pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church, Minneapolis, Minnesota. He is author of more than 50 books.

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